KALAMAZOO — When Jack Jones became the head athletic trainer at Western Michigan University in 1956, sports medicine was still in its formative stages. Stretchers were taboo and terms like “hydration” were seldom heard.

“It was pretty much in the dark ages,” Jones said. “I wasn’t allowed to carry a water bottleon the practice field.”

Jones served as head athletic trainerfor 21 years (1956-’77) and was the director of WMU athletic training education from 1976-84. He will be inducted into the WMU Athletic Hall of Fame on Oct. 28, one of six members in the class of 2011.

Jones was the driving force behind the establishment of the graduate level athletic training program at WMU and he foundedthe Mid-American Conference Sports Medicine Association. He is a member of the Michigan Athletic Trainers Association Hall of Fame.

Jones doesn’t like to talk about himself, but instead, turns the focus to what his contributions helped lead to — a total re-thinking of how people should be trained to better treat athletes.

Jones graduated from the University of Texas in 1950 with a degree in physical education. His mentor, Frank Medina, became a founding member of the National Athletic Trainers Association and a U.S. Olympic Team athletic trainer.

Jones said he remembers looking at human cadavers in college to see how muscles, joints and tendons worked together. When he came to WMU, he said the athletic training program consisted mainly of general education and first-aid classes, and he knew that wasn’t good enough.

Jones said trainers needed to be recognized as healthcare providers rather than people who took care of equipment and handed out heat pads. There weren’t enough people with the required knowledge to educate coaches on how to handle injuries instead of simply telling players to walk it off, Jones said.

“That was the mindset of coaches who still had that 1940s mentality,” Jones said. “They would never let you bring a stretcher on the field because parents would think their kid was dying and the fans wouldn’t like it.”

After his retirement from WMU, Jones and his wife, Rose Marie, returned to Texas to be closer to his son Gary, who played baseball at WMU. But his impact continued to grow, as three former student athletic trainers, who worked with Jones, were inducted into the NATA Hall of Fame.

Jones, who, with his wife, recently moved back to Portage to be close to their daughter, Cristy Peterson, said helping the athletes succeed in life was always more important to him than teams’ won-loss records. He started the MAC trainers association to unify the trainers in the conference in an effort to ensure that all athletes would consistently receive proper treatment.

“If your athlete gets hurt, I’m going to be right there next to you helping you,” Jones told other athletic trainers. “If you aren’t there, you can rest assured I will give him the very best care that I can.”